


One Last Call

by Syrum



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5435183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrum/pseuds/Syrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Huh, well that’s new.”  Lisa stared at the blinking red light on the answer machine for a moment, attached to a phone the had never once used and should, by all rights, have been disconnected.  Yet, somehow it wasn’t, or at least hadn’t been at the time the message was left.</p><p>Len grieves the loss of his lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Call

**Author's Note:**

> Another one of my 'just had a nap and here's a half formed idea' turned fic. Some angst, because that's just the place I am at the moment.

“Huh, well that’s new.” Lisa stared at the blinking red light on the answer machine for a moment, attached to a phone they had never once used and should, by all rights, have been disconnected. Yet, somehow it wasn’t, or at least hadn’t been at the time the message was left.

“Maybe a cold caller?” Len replied with the smallest quirk of his lips; the closest thing he had managed to a smile in over two months, and Lisa offered her own grin in response. The money in the bags they were carrying into the house took priority for the moment, though, and the flashing light was temporarily forgotten, at least by Len. Lisa couldn’t quite get the slow blink from her mind though, and as she carried the last bag through to their ‘borrowed’ living room, she resolved to listen to the thing.

Not, really, for any other reason than it had piqued her curiosity. And, the thing had managed what she had not; it had made Len smile. Len, who had remained quiet and stoic for months. Len, who would not talk about why he spent hours staring into nothing, refusing to leave at first his room, then the house, who had barely eaten and slept too much, and who had taken weeks of coaxing to accompany both her and Mick on the bank heist she had planned.

If Lisa ever found out just _who_ had broken her big brother’s heart, she would break theirs. With her gun.

Pressing play, she stood and listened for a moment, her brother shuffling around in the kitchen behind her as static erupted from the small, tinny speaker of the answer machine for a moment. After a few seconds, though, a voice broke through, distorted and with a clear note of exhaustion to it.

 _“...running for so long, but if I slow down it’ll get me. I found a way to break through, though. If I slow down just enough this message should reach you. I’m just so damn tired, can’t keep this up, hope I have time for this at least.”_ A pause and another crackle, something like another voice on the line for a moment, then it was gone. _“I needed to tell you...I’m so sorry I missed our anniversary, but I needed to keep this **thing** away from you, had to keep you safe. I need you to know just **how much** I love you. God, if I could have spent the rest of my life with you, I would have. My only regret-”_ Another pause, and Lisa had a feeling this time it was entirely deliberate. _“Is that I can’t tell you this in person. Can’t tell you how much you mean to me, how badly I’ve fallen for you. I love you, **I love you** , and I’m sorry.”_ The sound that came out of the speaker at the end of the voicemail was ungodly, loud and shrill, like bones rending and it send an unpleasant shiver up Lisa’s spine as the message clicked off.

“That was weird. Wrong number, maybe?” She frowned, turning to look at her brother, her eyes widening as she found him slumped against the doorframe. He was breathing in shallow gasps, near enough hyperventilating as he stared unseeing at the answer machine on the table. “Lenny?”

Len let himself be led over to the couch, sitting because he was told to, barely able to think past the roaring in his ears, never mind remember to breathe. He sat like that for a while, hours perhaps, the message playing over and over in his mind. It was dark by the time he was able to return to himself enough to tell Lisa she needed to take Mick and the money, finish the job and get it stashed away safely somewhere. Anything, really, to get her out of the house for what he needed to do next. She hadn’t wanted to go, of course, but he spoke too much sense, and the promise that he would tell her everything when she got back was enough to persuade her to go.

The roar of engines had barely faded into the distance when Len dialled the number of the CCPD main precinct, requesting to speak with Detective Joe West, leaving his address and then hanging up before West could get to the call himself.

He didn’t want to actually talk to the man. He just needed him there.

It took almost an hour for the knock on the door to sound, and Len wasn’t certain when he had moved to let the man in, but apparently he had. The next thing he knew he was back on the couch, head in his hands and _that damn message_ playing again. They listened in silence for a moment, and Len could not have said if anyone else was in the room with them at the time, too engrossed with the voice spilling from his answer machine. When the message ended, when _that sound_ filled the room again, Len finally snapped. The wail he released was loud enough that he was certain the neighbours might hear, fat tears spilling from his eyes to land unchecked upon the carpet at his feet, curling forward, hands gripping his head with nails digging in hard enough to leave long, red welts in their wake. He cried, _sobbed_ , for the first time since everything had started, since he had first been left alone with no explanation.

He had, perhaps, hoped that the situation was temporary. It was clear now that it wasn’t.

“Oh, Bear.” West was behind him, lingering over the answering machine and for one horrible moment Len thought perhaps he might play the message again. He couldn’t take that, he just _couldn’t_. “He could have called me, or Iris, or even his dad, but he didn’t.” The detective’s attention was clearly back on Len, and he sounded...Len wasn’t quite certain, and truthfully didn’t really care. “He didn’t, he called you. One call, and he called you.”

“I’d ask why, but it’s pretty self explanatory.” The couch dipped at his side and silence followed for a moment. “He would never tell me, just who he’d fallen for. I guess I just assumed, he’d come out to me in his own time. I knew, you know? Didn’t think it’d be you.” Len did not respond, he couldn’t really, curling in on himself further. “Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t have mattered, even if he’d told me. Easy to say that now, isn’t it? God he loved you though. We could all see it, just how much he adored the man he’d found.” Len could feel the way the couch shifted as West turned to look at him, watching him carefully. “Did you love him, Snart?”

 _“More than anything.”_ Turning himself, Len found - unsurprisingly - that the detective’s eyes were not exactly dry. He was, he thought, holding up particularly well considering he had just found out his adoptive son had...Len couldn’t even think on it, another shudder of grief running through him, face contorting in agony.

“Then, I’m glad he had you. Even just for a little while, because I’ve never seen him as happy as he has been this past year.” Joe could have arrested him then, taken him in for a plethora of crimes both past and present. Len had counted on it, even. He didn’t though; waiting with him until Lisa returned, thankfully without Mick, leaving with the tape because they both knew it was for the best.

God, but Len wished he could hear Barry’s voice one last time. Kiss him one last time. To hold him, let him know just how perfect and wonderful and _loved_ he truly was. He couldn’t, though. Barry was gone, the _Flash_ was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.


End file.
